Monday, December 11, 2006

Is there anyone who still thinks we should be in Iraq?

If so, WHY?

BAGHDAD, Dec. 10 — President Jalal Talabani said Sunday that the American program to train Iraq’s security forces had been a repeated failure and he denounced a plan to increase the number of American advisers working with the Iraqi Army, saying it would subvert the country’s sovereignty....

American commanders have poured more than $12 billion into training and equipping Iraq’s security forces and have tied a withdrawal of American troops to success in these efforts. But Mr. Talabani ridiculed them. “What have they done so far in training the army and the police?” he said. “What they have done is move from failure to failure.”...

American and some Iraqi officials say some Iraqi police and army units are more beholden to Shiite militias than to the government and have helped to drive the cycles of retributive violence by attacking Sunni Arabs. Some Iraqi officials have also said that Sunni Arab officers have abetted the Sunni-led insurgency.

The Americans, Mr. Talabani said, “gathered them from the street regardless of their loyalty to the new Iraq, their capacity, their ability.”

So - the President of Iraq regards American attempts to train Iraqis as throwing money down a toilet - largely because we don't care WHO we train - we'll grab an Iraqi who is hostile to the new Government and say, "Hey, want to be in the army?"

AND he regards increasing our OWN troops as threatening their new soveriegnty.